From: Aleix Ruiz Falqués
Message: 4560
Date: 2016-03-14
Dear Ven.,Yes, good question. It does seem unproblematic on the surface. But I think people felt that the surface meaning - tathā gata or tathā āgata, thus gone or thus come (in the way of all previous Buddhas) - was too strained, not natural, and as Norman says (as per Steve Collins' reference), quoting Thomas, "in its use in the scriptures there īs no trace of the Sanskrit meaning contained in tathā and gata".The earliest form linguistically that we have of the word is the Ardha Māgadhī which is tahāgaya, where the aspirate is reduced to a -h- and the intervocalic stop has been weakened to a -y- glide, so all sorts of interpretations are possible, as I have outlined. Tathā-gata or tathā-āgata are just two possibilities and they are (in my opinion) Sanskritizations of the Prakrit tahāgaya. I think it was because of this ambiguity (as recognized also by Buddhaghosa who inter alia, suggests tatha-āgada and tatha-agada, true speech and true medicine) that scholars began looking further afield for possible explanations of the etymology. But yes "Thus-come" or "Thus gone" is certainly a good possibility, as is as is "Come to the truths" which Dmytro suggests. The other possibility is that the word is a homynym and deliberately ambiguous, and several of these meanings are to be evoked simultaneously. This latter theory is what I would argue.Best wishes,Bryan
From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2016 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
Thanks friends :)It still seems confusing that the word might have come from Dravidian sources, esp. why Hurvitz seems so sure that it did, when it looks so familiarly Sanskritic. Bryan, why is tathaa gata or tathaa aagata unconvincing? It just doesn't seem like such a problematic word is all.Best wishes,YuttadhammoDear Pali friends,Here's my small study of explanations of this word in Sutta and Atthakatha, which points to the explanation: tathāni āgatoti tathāgato as the most substantiated,
with tathāni in the sense explaned in Tattha sutta:
‘‘Cattārimāni, bhikkhave, tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni. Katamāni cattāri? ‘Idaṃ dukkha’nti, bhikkhave, tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhasamudayo’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodho’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ – imāni kho, bhikkhave, cattāri tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni.
Best wishes,Dmytro______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Steven Collins scollins951@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Komu: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: 13.03.2016 06:41
> Předmět: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
>On tathāgata see K.R.Norman, Collected Papers IV 162-63.Steve Collins
From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,The etymology of the word has long been a problem which is why Hurvitz suggests its origin amongst the indigenous peoples of India (Dravidian or Munda, most likely, but we don't know all the language groups that existed at the time of the Indo Aryan immigration).Hurvitz is only echoing a suggestion made by Schayer in 1935 and Thomas in 1937.There are indeed a lot of non Indo-Aryan words in theTipiṭaka, some of which I discuss in my article in Buddhist Studies Review (2013: "Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures", p. 145-80). These are mainly place names and names of fauna and flora unfamiliar to the immigrants which were incorporated into the Indo-Aryan language. But there are also a lot of technical terms. The Buddha's funeral, for example, does not follow a "normal" Indo-Aryan practice but is based on indigenous customs.In my thesis, I briefly discuss the problem of tathāgāta, which I attach for your info (it also contains the references above). There is also a short summary of the problems with the word in Mayrhofer's Etymological Dictionary (1963) on page 472.Best wishes,Bryan
From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 5:23 PM
Subject: [palistudy] Tathāgata
YuttadhammoThanks,I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight on the origin of this word as described in this quote - is the implication that it came from Proto-Indo-European?"Without much doubt, tathāgata is a non-Indic word refurbished to have an Indic appearance long after it had come into current use among India's Buddhists."Dear Friends,I have just come across a curious passage in the introduction to a translation of the Lotus Sutra, by Leon Hurvitz: